Why old files in /etc ?

[Jilles Tjoelker]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 07:33:23AM -0500, Michael Gass wrote:
> Just installed 7.2-release in an old Pavilion 4455 (PII, 256M)
> and it runs great.  Csuped src and ports and rebuilt world and
> generic kernel for 7.2-stable and that went well. 

> My question is why are the files in /etc in 7.2-stable older 
> versions (generally) than in 7.2-release?  I do not just mean
> older by date, but older versions of the files - like many of
> the config files for sendmail or the net.  Why  is stable using
> older versions of these files than release?

> Mostly I did not let mergemaster install the files from the build
> because they were so much older than the original release versions.
> Again, why are the files for stable so much older?

This is because of a weakness in the svn-to-cvs exporter.

Formerly, only CVS was used and tagging a release did not require a
commit. So right after a release, both the release and -stable would
have the same revision numbers.

With Subversion, tagging a release requires a commit. The CVS exporter
keeps this commit, so all files will have a changed CVS Id. This looks
newer, until/unless the file is changed on -stable again.

To cope with this, it's best to use mergemaster's -F or -U options.

This question has been asked before.

-- 
Jilles Tjoelker